CMalik,
You asked if anybody knows what ingredients are in the soups at Olive Garden. Olive Garden does not share their ingredients, but I went to a "copy cat" recipe site. They do give you a good indication where the excitotoxins enter the soup dishes. In the minestrone, all the ingredients look good except for the four cups of "vegetable stock". Vegetable stock, except for a few manufacturers, has hydrolyzed vegetable protein and autolyzed yeast in them. It is what makes the stock strong tasting and gives it a hardy boot. I included the recipe so you can see for yourself.
Olive Garden Copycat Minestrone Soup {Slow Cooker}
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 6 hours
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
4 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
1 1/2 cups water
2 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
1 cup diced celery (3 stalks)
1 cup diced carrots (2 carrots)
1 cup diced yellow onion (1 small)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried crushed rosemary
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 1/3 cups diced zucchini (1 small)
1 1/3 cups shell pasta
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 (15 oz) can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 oz) can white navy beans or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14.5 oz) can Italian green beans, drained
2 cups slightly packed chopped fresh spinach
Finely shredded Romano cheese, for serving (Parmesan works too)
Directions
Add vegetable stock, water, tomatoes, celery, carrots, onion, parsley, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves and sugar to a slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook on low heat 6 - 8 hours or high 3 - 4 hours.
Add in zucchini, pasta, garlic, kidney beans and white beans and cook on high heat and additional 30 - 40 minutes until pasta is tender. Stir in spinach and Italian green beans and cook several minutes until heated through. Serve warm topped with Romano cheese.
Recipe Source: Cooking Classy
Concerning the Zuppa Toscans Soup: There are two ingredients that we would be concerned with. The first is the Italian sausage. Many, in fact, most Italian sausage has excitotoxins in them. When we pizza out, we always order it without sausage for that reason. The other item is 3 cans of chicken broth. I can guarantee you that if the broth is in a can, it will have flavor enhancers in them because it overcomes the taste of the can that sneaks in over a period of time. Since all restaurants use broth or stock from Sysco type food suppliers, I can again assure you they all use flavor enhancers to overcome frozen and shelf life flavors. I posted the recipe below of a copy cat site since Olive Garden does not or will not share their ingredient information.
I called them on 3/20/2014 and asked if they used flavor enhancers in their products. The individual that I talked to said I really needed to give them specific dishes so I asked about the minestrone and he said I would have to give them more so their "team" would have more to work with. I said how about this question, "Does Olive Garden use hydrolyzed proteins in any of their dishes?" He didn't believe they could answer such a vague question. I gave him my contact information and asked if he would send me the results of his "teams" research. I guess we are in a holding pattern because Olive Garden doesn't seem to be able to tell us, their customers, what is in their food. Stay tuned for further development.
Zuppa Toscana Soup {Olive Garden Copycat Recipe}
Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients
2 tsp olive oil
1 lb Italian Sausage (casings removed if necessary)
4 oz bacon (about 5 slices), diced into 1/2 to 1-inch pieces
1 cup chopped yellow onion (about 1 small onion)
3 (14.5 oz) cans low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups water
1 1/2 lbs Russet potatoes, scrubbed and rinsed then sliced into halves, halves diced into 1/8 to 1/6-inch slices
1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp salt, then to taste
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 cups half and half
1 cup lightly packed kale, chopped into bite size pieces
finely shredded Romano cheese for serving, optional
Directions
Heat olive oil in a large non-stick saucepan over medium-high heat. Crumble sausage into 1-inch pieces and add to saucepan. Cook sausage, stirring occasionally until cooked through. Drain sausage onto a plate or baking dish lined with paper towels leaving 1 tsp fat in pan, set sausage aside. Add diced bacon (being sure to separate pieces from each other if you stacked them when slicing) to fat in saucepan, return to heat and saute 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add diced onions to bacon in saucepan and saute mixture until bacon is cooked through (not crisp) and onions are tender, about 5 minutes longer.
Add chicken broth, water, sliced potatoes, sugar, fennel seeds, salt and pepper. Bring soup just to a boil then reduce heat to medium-low and stir in half and half, kale and cooked sausage. Cover saucepan and simmer 25 - 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are very tender. Use a spoon or ladle to remove excess fat from top of soup if desired. Serve warm topped with Romano cheese.
